Agfa Materials and HC Starck sign crosslicense agreement on the PEDOT-PSS technology

Agfa Materials announced today that it has reached an agreement with H.C. Starck Clevios GmbH (Leverkusen, Germany) on outstanding intellectual property claims over the PEDOT/PSS technology and formulations. A worldwide cross-license agreement, covering the PEDOT/PSS technology and formulations was signed.

The PEDOT/PSS technology, originally developed for the antistatic properties of Agfa's photographic film, is commercialized for more than 10 years under the trade name ORGACONTM by Agfa Materials and CLEVIOS (formerly BAYTRON) by HC Starck Clevios GmbH.

This cross-license agreement takes away the uncertainty surrounding the intellectual property and will simplify product development by both companies and their customers. The settlement is of particular and lasting interest as it relates to a number of patents, effective until beyond 2020, which will enable emerging technologies to be based on PEDOT/PSS.

Louis Kuitenbrouwer, VP Sales and Marketing of Agfa Materials commented: "This agreement is a win-win situation for both companies and its customers, as it will allow both companies to focus on product development. In the transition of Agfa Materials from a film coating company for photographic applications to a materials company, new business lines like ORGACONTM are very important. This agreement will accelerate application development and commercialization of ORGACONTM in the emerging fields of printed electronics, OLED lighting and OPV."